Yes, he should be worried.
**Even more snarky goodness below**
The first set of documents were released today from the original John Doe investigation into corruption in current Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walkers office when he was Milwaukee County Executive.
The really big news? Outside of a tiny Associated Press article on a Madison web site and an even tinier mention on a Green Bay television station website there is NO in state reporting on this. At all. Not in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, or even the Capitol Times.
(Update: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel finally has something up on their website and there is a mention of the document release with no details on the Wisconsin State Journal website. See below the cheese curl).
Nope, I had to go out of state to the Minneapolis Star Tribune for my original link.
The "War Room" file was taken from Walker's then-work computer is dated in 2006. It plots out issues he wanted to highlight, places he planned to visit, and groups and media on his radar. It's unclear whether Walker wrote the documents or they were prepared by others for him.
But it lists questions that would need to be addressed before Walker would respond, such as "Does it fit the message for the day, week and/or month?" and whether one of his aides could attend and discuss an issue. Listed under the "major events" category are notes about preparing for press conferences and "leak on vetoes," though further explanation isn't included.
A document titled "Grassroots Organization" discusses the need to find "key contacts" within industries throughout Milwaukee County, including legal, financial, real estate, health care and education. It also calls for courting specific media outlets for various stories and organizing residents around specific causes and issues, including school choice advocates, government reform supporters and taxpayer groups.
It also calls for finding ethnic and religious contacts, including those in the African-American, Hispanic, Arab, Asian and Jewish communities.
Even back in 2006, Walker was all about politics, getting supporters, and planning his next moves for his next higher political office. And ensuring he had the media in his pocket.
These documents should have been archived and available from Milwaukee County, however Scott Walkers Milwaukee County Executive Office used personal computers, private email accounts, and a secret router to circumvent the required document archiving. John Doe Probe prosecutors had to seize and "dump" personal computers of Walkers staff to retrieve this information.
News and other organizations have requested access to the documents from the original John Doe and the overseeing judge ordered the documents to be returned to Milwaukee County so they could be released under Open Records requests. Since the information was a digital dump of all contents of multiple personal computers, it was necessary for Milwaukee County to review the documents and remove personal information such as Social Security numbers, personal health information, personal photographs, etc. before the release could be made. This is the first batch of those documents.
I'll keep you posted if more information becomes available as reporters and others sift through the 14 gigabytes of data. I don't have an online source yet to see them myself.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has avoided talking about the "War Room" documents featured in the Associated Press's coverage. Instead, they focused on the very early push-back of the original John Doe Probe.
Tom Nardelli, chief of staff to Walker, wrote a memo on Aug. 17, 2010, detailing his meeting with Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, raising questions about the length of the investigation and the reason for seizing an unspecified individual's computer.
"He (Chisholm) said there are times when a matter takes you into a different direction than initially planned and that can add time to any review," Nardelli wrote.
"I indicated that I was suspicious of motives given the time it's taken to resolve. He assured me that he would not allow his role as a prosecutor to be influenced by outside 'political' agenda regardless of the partisan nature we are currently living in."
Of course Walkers office was upset. Walker was feverishly running for Governor and the John Doe Probe, while secret, was focusing attention on Walkers time as Milwaukee County Executive - attention he wanted to avoid.
And Nardelli was probably kicking himself at the time. He, himself, approached prosecutors about missing funds from a veterans charitable organization that Walker had insisted be transferred to the County. The probe noticed other "irregularities" as they looked into the missing money and the John Doe Probe expanded to include those, as well.
Another Walker Lie Exposed
Among the information released Friday were documents from Russell's hard drive, including an archive of more than 1,000 pages of the ScottForGov.com blog.
Walker and his campaign repeatedly denied any involvement in that web site. Data from the personal computer of Tim Russell, Walkers former Chief of Staff, shows that to be wholly untrue. (Not) a surprise.
(Update: Documents show that in 2009 Walker himself approved the name of the website)
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Stay tuned. I'm sure there's more to come.
The next batch of documents is scheduled for August 19. Those documents have been unsealed by the courts and involve John Doe II.
Even more snarky goodness is coming out.
The documents on Walker's hard drive included one labeled "Big Ideas for 2008." That memo proposed breaking Milwaukee Public Schools into smaller districts, outsourcing court staff, moving county mental health patients to leased space at St. Michael's Hospital and selling land to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for a new engineering school.
It also included the idea of turning over fire service at the airport to the Milwaukee Fire Department and leasing out the airport and possibly using the proceeds for transit services.
Walker's computer also contained a 2008 memo on reinventing government that discussed three options — eliminating county government and spinning off its duties to other local government; eliminating all local governments in Milwaukee County and forming a new metropolitan government for the region; and consolidating county services with those of suburban communities.
First, let me say how much ignorance this conveys about Walkers knowledge. He wanted to break down Milwaukee Public Schools into smaller districts, but HAD NO CONTROL over the schools. They are run by the City of Milwaukee as well as the cities and town within Milwaukee County. As for the other (bad) ideas, none of them got off the ground.
But the most snarkilicious bit was one about Walkers motorcycle tour. Yes, he loved to play dress up when he was Milwaukee County Exec. and travel around the state (at County taxpayer expense) and ride a motorcycle into an event.
There were also details about Walker's annual Harley-Davidson motorcycle ride around Wisconsin. One undated memo detailed when to sign up for motorcycle lessons at the House of Harley-Davidson.
(bolding is mine)
Yes, the fake motorcycle rider in his fancy leathers was just another pretense to fool the voters. Yes, we "knew", but it's nice to see it in writing.
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